[4] After graduating from Eastman, Miller played with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and then moved to New York City, where he was a member of the Alec Wilder Octet (1938–41 and occasionally later), as well as performing with David Mannes, Andre Kostelanetz, Percy Faith, George Gershwin, and Charlie Parker.

[2] Miller played the English horn part in the Largo movement of Dvořák's New World Symphony in a 1947 recording conducted by Leopold Stokowski.

[5] In 1948 he performed Mozart's Oboe Concerto in C major with the CBS Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alfredo Antonini in a broadcast for Voice of America.

[7] As part of the CBS Symphony, Miller participated in the musical accompaniment on the 1938 radio broadcast of Orson Welles's Mercury Theater on the Air production of The War of the Worlds.

Miller helped direct the careers of artists who were already signed to the label, such as Doris Day, Dinah Shore, and Jo Stafford.

Mitch Miller disapproved of rock 'n' roll[9]—one of his contemporaries described his denunciation of it as "The Gettysburg Address of Music"—and passed not only on Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, who became stars on RCA and Coral, respectively, but on The Beatles as well, creating a fortune in revenue for rival Capitol.

[11]In defense of his anti-rock stance, he once told NME in January 1958: "Rock 'n' roll is musical baby food: it is the worship of mediocrity, brought about by a passion for conformity.

"[12] Despite his distaste for rock 'n' roll, Miller emphasized emotional expression over vocal perfection[9] and often produced records for Columbia artists that were rockish in nature.

Although he oversaw dozens of chart hits, his relentlessly cheery arrangements and his penchant for novelty material—for example, "Come On-a My House" (Rosemary Clooney), "Mama Will Bark" (Frank Sinatra and Dagmar)—have drawn criticism from some admirers of traditional pop music.

Miller also conceived the idea of the pop record "sound" per se: not so much an arrangement or a tune, but an aural texture (usually replete with extramusical gimmicks) that could be created in the studio and then replicated in live performance, instead of the other way around.

"Mule Train", Miller's first major hit (for Frankie Laine) and the foundation of his career, set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock.

[14]While some of Columbia's performers, including Harry James,[15] Frank Sinatra, and Rosemary Clooney,[16] resented Miller's methods, the label maintained a high release-to-hit ratio during the 1950s.

A choral group called The Sandpiper Singers provided the vocals for these recordings, including an album of Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

In 1987, Miller conducted the London Symphony Orchestra with pianist David Golub in a well-received[19] recording of Gershwin's An American in Paris, Concerto in F and Rhapsody in Blue.

[20][21] Each weekly episode concluded with the same abruptly-ending nonsense choral song, to the tune of The Stars and Stripes Forever: Be kind to your web-footed friends, For a duck may be somebody's mother.

[23] Sing Along with Mitch occasionally featured celebrity guests who would appear throughout the hour, and whose repertoire would be worked into the episode's list of songs: George Burns, Milton Berle, and Shirley Temple among them.

These surprise guests were dressed like the male chorus members and hidden among them for the closing sing-along, including Johnny Carson, Jerry Lewis, Wally Cox, Buddy Hackett, and Joe E. Ross (in his police uniform from the Car 54, Where Are You?

For several years, Miller was featured in a popular series of Christmas festivities in New Bedford, Massachusetts, leading large crowds singing carols.

Miller also appeared as host of two PBS television specials, Keep America Singing (1994) and Voices In Harmony (1996), featuring champion quartets and choruses of SPEBSQSA and Sweet Adelines International.

At his first rehearsal for television, Miller took his position in front of the chorus and began conducting in the usual choirmaster manner: arms outstretched with hands gesturing, so the singers could see his signals.

The sketch spoofed the show's production values, including cameras panning among the vocalists, going out of control and knocking them over, then chasing Allen out of the studio and onto the roof.